ShortScale.org

Interesting topic I saw on Reddit that I thought would be quite a good topic here.

so, pedal, amp, whatever, what have you owned before that has been a complete pile of shite?

Boss SD-1

Kay Synth Les Paul

Danelectro Pepperoni phaser, sounded like complete and utter crap. Do not recommend. Also Danelectro FAB metal sounded like a bunch of wasps. I had a cleartone cable that cut all of the high end out of my guitar signal. Also the Peavey Windsor was one of the biggest gear purchase regrets I've ever had, sounded utterly awful.

If I had to choose one of them it would be the Peavey, it was my first 'big' amp. It was massive, was very loud and always sounded like Mastodon - even with the gain at 1 - which was awesome until I tried to play anything needing a clean sound.

Gorilla TC-110 amp. It came with the first guitar I ever bought. It was too large for practising, too much bass, heavy and sounded atrocious. The pots crackled and were worn out, which made dialling in the volume a real PITA.

I've never seen another one being used or on sale, and I know why!

Mine would definitely be (I imagine robroe will disagree) my Fender Performer 1000 amp.

I loved it when I first got it as it was my first 'bigger' amp past a 15w practice amp. £200 on ebay and it was good for the first couple of months except the volume was basically "Toneless sensible volume" until you hit about 1.5 and then it was full blast, like the same volume from 1.5 to 10. The clean channel was fine I guess, but the dirt channel was just fucking awful. It was more the novelty of having a 'proper' amp in hindsight.

Then I started getting clicks and pops, then the channels started switching themselves, then it would just stop working. Turns out the design GENIUS' at fender during the 80's decided to put all of the heavy electronics that heat up, on one side of the board inside, which means that every time you turn it on it just de-solders itself (oh yeah, they also used nasty cheap solder).

I've tried to give the thing away but nobody wants an amp that's only function is to kill/break itself.

I was going to say a DS-1 but then it was my first pedal and I did love it to begin with. So my vote goes for -



I bought one on a whim from a cash converters/cash generators type place having never heard one before because it was cheap. I think I used it for about 20 seconds before deciding it was going on ebay. There are some muff circuits that I like, and I really liked the MBM green muff I had. It probably actually is worse than a DS-1.

Starcaster flanger...did absolutely fuck all flanging but dropped the over all volume of my signal when it was on... had it for a day and flipped it.

EHX Doctor Q
Complete shite. Sold with some waffle about Bootsy Collins but I couldn't get a decent sound out of it. The Q-Tron is vastly superior.

Randal Commando Amp
One of the older Solid State amps, impossible to get any useable tone from it and it hated pedals.

Epiphone Les Paul Special II
Trash. No redeeming features whatsoever, unplayable and could not set it up to any reasonable standard.

Fran wrote:Epiphone Les Paul Special II
Trash. No redeeming features whatsoever, unplayable and could not set it up to any reasonable standard.

Haha, my friend had one of these and I remember liking it for the plink tone. Probably because it was setup with 8s. Fretwork looked liked the Queen Mother's teeth

Worst guitar: Top Twenty SG-shaped guitar. May have been made by Teisco, but it was crap, not even cool in a slidey or dreky way.

Worst effect: Current EH Memory Boy. Wibbly, unpredictable delay. What's the point?

Worst amp: I've played some terrible amps at gigs and rehearsal rooms, usually Peaveys, but the worst amp I've ever owned is tied between the current Mustang II and the same Rhino beginner amp mentioned above.

timhulio wrote:Worst effect: Current EH Memory Boy. Wibbly, unpredictable delay. What's the point?

What power supply you using? These are very picky about what power supply its running on, the supply it comes with is perfect as are the diago/johnnyshredfreak however they don't really work properly on the Maplin power supplies.

Oh no, I used the power supply it shipped with. I'm 100% sure the pedal worked as intended.

Fair enough, they're a pretty wild pedal to be honest. I did enjoy the one I had though, although I never really used it enough to justify keeping it.

Squier MIC "Bullet Series" Stratocaster from the early-mid '90s
Post Japan, pre CNC... where the [justified] public disdain for Squiers began with most guitarists, I'm sure. Modern Squiers are like making love to a beautiful woman you feel genuine affection for after piddling around with one of these. Awful corners on the fingerboards, awful fretwork, uneven/mottled finish and a tonal spread that ranges from flat to tinny.

But at least that was a sub-$200 guitar... cue:

Jag-Stang
If you're mildly into these guitars and you've researched them, you've probably heard the stories. I've had this guitar since 1998 (the past half of my life) along with about 14 other electric guitars and I have to admit they're pretty much all true. I've tried to make friends with it a billion times (including a couple months back after giving it some Super Distortion/500k love), but you have to be a hypodermic-sniffer to be into these. They are not a Jaguar/Mustang crossover, they're a shittier-feeling Mustang without the brightness. Even with heavy mods something like a Strat, Tele, Mustang, Jaguar, etc will blow it out of the water sound-wise.

Digitech Digiverb, sounds bad IMHO. Really bad.

I've had pretty great gear since the get go really, no huge complaints. Just pedals I didn't mesh with.

James wrote:I was going to say a DS-1 but then it was my first pedal and I did love it to begin with. So my vote goes for -



I bought one on a whim from a cash converters/cash generators type place having never heard one before because it was cheap. I think I used it for about 20 seconds before deciding it was going on ebay. There are some muff circuits that I like, and I really liked the MBM green muff I had. It probably actually is worse than a DS-1.

I got one fo these as my going away present from work in Exeter and it has 1 good setting as far as I have found, literally anything else sounds like a pile of wank, not to mention the boost switch which should be renamed the utter shite switch.
However, the pedal I have least liked ever is the EHX NY Muff RI, really didn't get on with that one.

Goddamn worst amp I have ever tried to work with. Fucking hell. Traded a krankenstein for it, since i thought it would suit my needs. Immediately traded it for a Laney AOR 50 Combo that was worlds better. Worst trade I've ever made.

Fender Frontman 212 DSP. My AC30 had been stolen and I needed a loud amp on less than a day's notice. It was cheap enough and listed locally in town. I ran it in acoustic mode (no preamp/no processing) with a Behringer GDI21 to make it suck less.

I ended up selling it to a church who bought it to use as a PA.

timhulio wrote:Oh no, I used the power supply it shipped with. I'm 100% sure the pedal worked as intended.

Weird. the one I owned did the DMM thing very well

[youtube][/youtube]